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I could get to work much faster if stop signs and red lights were optional.

And my workday would be much less stressful if my daily responsibilities were optional.

I'd also have more money in my pocket if my mortgage payments were optional. Same with my utility bills, health insurance premiums and taxes.

If aging were optional, my longtime colleagues and I would still be closing down Andy's Gavin's every night instead of nodding off by 9 o'clock while binge-watching "Breaking Bad" on Netflix.

Alas, in a reality governed by manmade and natural laws, some things simply aren't optional.

Unless you're running the Scranton Single Tax Office, which collects taxes for the city, Scranton School District and Lackawanna County. In that case, you can pretty much make it up as you go. Or just maintain the status quo.

Whatever works for you.

Tax Collector Bill Courtright has spent the past three years and change not changing the illegal accounting practices that plunged the tax office into scandal in 2008, when it was discovered that an office bank account held $12.3 million in undistributed taxes collected during Ken McDowell's reign of error as Absentee Tax Collector.

A forensic audit showed that most of the money was distributed to the proper municipalities, but about $1.6 million in wage taxes was never accounted for. The tax office books were so screwed up, the auditors said it would be impossible to uncover where the missing money went. An FBI investigation that didn't result in charges ended with an agent explaining, "You can't arrest incompetence."

Or end it, apparently.

A former Scranton councilman, Mr. Courtright campaigned on a promise to improve tax office procedures, yet his office still mixes funds owed to multiple municipalities in a single account, the very practice at the arrhythmic heart of the previous debacle. The tax office lost eight positions last year after a state-mandated change in wage tax collection. Mr. Courtright says he hasn't ended the mixing of funds because he lacks the personnel to handle the job.

"If we were to separate them (tax funds) all out, it's accounting-intensive. With the loss of employees, it's going to be difficult," Mr. Courtright said. "It's not cut-and-dry like everyone thinks."

Actually, it is. The Single Tax Act of 1929 is starkly clear. It requires taxes for each governing body to be deposited in separate accounts. It specifically forbids intermingling of the tax dollars of governing bodies. Much like stop signs and aging, it offers no exceptions for inconvenience. So Bill Courtright, who is running for Scranton mayor against Liz "Have Gun, It Travels" Randol, is running his elected office in violation of the state law he swore an oath to uphold.

That's not as big a deal as you might think.

"It's not a big deal to have one account," Lackawanna County chief financial officer Thomas Durkin said Tuesday. "They are fully accountable to us. We're satisfied every year that we get the money we're supposed to get."

Scranton Schools Superintendent Bill King had a similarly placid response. He said later in the week that while ideally Mr. Courtright would follow the law, he understands why doing so is a hardship.

"We're fairly confident that the funds we are receiving are appropriate," Mr. King said. "In light of what occurred a few years ago, we try to stay on top of it and stay in close contact with the tax collector to ensure the funds are rolling in and rolling in consistently."

Likely reacting to a Thursday Times-Tribune editorial that expressed shock at the county CFO's cool confidence in an illegal accounting practice, the county commissioners cleared their tightened throats. Through spokesman Joe D'Arienzo, they said, "Whatever the law may be in a given area, we expect the law to be followed."

The commissioners sounded eerily like City Business Administrator Ryan McGowan who said, "We're aware and Mr. Courtright is aware of what the audit stated, and we want to make sure that whatever needs to be done is done in the correct fashion so there are no issues. Whatever the letter of law states is what we hope they would do."

"Whatever" the law says. As if it is some inscrutable riddle scrawled on dried goatskin and buried in some cobwebbed catacomb no mere mortal can access. It's been five years since the tax office debacle. Shouldn't these guys know what the law says by now?

Yes, and of course, they do. But they also know the rules of Northeast Pennsylvania politics: Obey the law, unless it's inconvenient, and don't point fingers. The newspaper might make a big deal out of it, but the voters will barely notice. They're too disillusioned to make much of a stink, anyway.

Whatever works for you.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, finds the laws of physics inconvenient, but must live under their tyranny, anyway. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter

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